A review by mitskacir
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love

2.0

I was really excited about this book, but was severely disappointed. Perhaps this is a case of my expectations not aligning with the actual objective of the book, but even so it was hard for me to appreciate it. This book is disorganized and rambling - I could not understand the flow of thoughts and the section headings were uninformative (ex: "Starbucks"). Some of the content was interesting, and I did learn some things (the data on household income was particularly impactful for me). However, most of the information was repetitive and wasn't followed by any actionable steps that teachers can take to address issues in (or outside of) the classroom. Most data was followed by "this is caused by..." and then a random (and oft-repeated) collection of words like homophobia, racism, xenophobia, ablism, Islamophobia, patriarchy, colonialism, etc., leaving me without a lot to go on. One of the most frustrating things for me, as a non-black teacher, was her emphasis that dark teachers make a huge positive impact in the lives of dark students and insistence that non-dark teachers must improve (true!), but complete silence on HOW non-dark teachers can improve themselves for their dark students. While I can accept that I can never fill the role of a dark teacher in terms of representation and understanding my student's experiences as dark people, it made me feel that I can never be even a good teacher for dark students.

If you are interested in understanding the causes of issues that face dark youth in America, I think there are other much more informative and coherent books, for example [b:The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness|6792458|The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness|Michelle Alexander|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328751532l/6792458._SX50_.jpg|6996712]. The examination this book gives any topic is too cursory to be useful for anyone trying to deeply understand these issues.